Yor unwrapped her lunch as she sat down with the others.
A sandwich, salad, and chocolate chip cookie, not counting the apple she usually ate before her smoke break in the afternoon. The sandwich was toasted white bread, with cheese melted onto salami, a diced pickle, lettuce and honey mustard sauce Loid had mixed himself; the salad was the same mixed lettuce with onions and peppers chopped in, bits of feta cheese, croutons from the heel of their last bread loaf and a sweet-sour sauce Loid made from too many ingredients for her to remember, included in a separate container to pour when she ate so it didn't get soggy. The cookie was from a packet.
When Yor lived alone she'd throw together bread with ham, or carrots, or whatever she had on hand the morning of work to make a sandwich. But with the exact same rations Loid seemed capable of producing an infinite combination of appealing meals which didn't make Camilla cringe in disgust. He said that if he was making lunch for himself and Anya anyways, it was little more work to make a third portion, so it wasn't a big deal. But he put far too much care into it for Yor to believe him.
"Yor," Camilla said, after a swig from the flask she and Millie were passing back and forth.
"Oh, yes?"
"What's Loid-ey like in bed?" she asked.
The fight-or-flight response was immediate, but Yor knew she couldn't just kill everyone like she usually preferred. She forced it down. 'Deflect, Yor, deflect!'she told herself.
"Oh, you know. Loid's pretty good. He doesn't snore or hog the covers," she began, only for Camilla to roll her eyes.
"Sex, Yor. What's it like having sex with him?"
Oh no.
"Uh, it's uh, you know, pretty good."
"Oh, it's 'pretty good' again," Camilla snorted. Her eyes narrowed. "He barely batted an eye at your old 'massage' work. I bet Loid-ey's a real sicko. He doesn't mind your body count - I bet he's into it. Your stories and everything." Camilla took a drag on her cigarette, prompting an answer.
Yor was, quietly, proud of her body count. She celebrated her two-hundred-fiftieth kill that last November. But even among Garden assassins it was poor taste to brag, and she certainly never discussed it with anyone else.
And besides, what did that have to do with sex?
"Come on, Camilla, knock it-"
"He's not like that at all," interrupted Millie. "Did you see that man? He's cold as ice deep down. Really likes being in control. Bet he's into ropes and crazy shit, right, Yor?"
"Why would you think that!?" Yor gasped.
"You know. Because he's a psychiatrist."
'Are psychiatrists all perverts?'Yor thought, worried. She'd been trying to deflect attention from herself, only to accidentally marry a giant, blinding,I-AM-A-SICKOsign? No wonder Yuri was so mad!
"Oh, you two," Sharon grumbled, barely interested. "Have you seen that man? Straight as an arrow. I bet he's boring as hell. Missionary, twice a week, tops."
"No, he's not boring!" Yor shot back, realizing a moment later she'd squandered her best way out of the conversation. She always screwed this sort of thing up - she could just have sheepishly agreed and asked to change the topic, without demeaning Loid too badly in front of her coworkers. Though she wasn't sure why a missionary would be involved…
"LUNCH. BREAK. NOT ATALKINGBREAK. EAT UP THEN GET BACK TO WORK, LADIES!" roared their supervisor, sticking his head into the office. "BRIAR-uh, FORGER, THAT MEMO HAD MORE SPELLING MISTAKES THAN MY SON'S BOOK REPORTS, RETYPE IT BY FOUR!"
"Yes, sir! Sorry! Will do!" Yor stammered, physically shaking, sweating a little.
Chief Barnes stormed off down the hallway, grumbling something under his breath.
"Cocksucker," Camilla mumbled. "I heard the Wessies shot his balls off in the war. No wonder he's always pissed."
"If they did, I mean, you should cut him some slack," objected Millie, and the two lapsed into an argument about the state of their boss's testicles, and whether it was okay to make fun of the hypothetical wound. As the conversation drifted away on the tangent, Yor had never been happier to be shouted at.
The rest of the day passed quietly, with the others fixated on cussing out Barnes. It seemed the danger had passed. Yor should've known better.
"Have fun with the freak!" Millie called after her as she left for the day. It took an act of iron willpower for her not to stop dead in the doorway.
They hadn't forgotten. They wouldn't forget. When Monday came they'd be right back on her, piranhas ready to strip her for whatever juicy details they could. But Yor had none. One more session of this talk and they'd know she and Loid had never been physical.
If Yor wasn't so inexperienced, she could have put some thought in and made it up over the weekend. 'Inexperienced' was the wrong word. She had no experience at all. Her parents died when she was young and she barely attended school, missing whatever sort of "sex basics" class the others must have been taught. She knew that she knew close to nothing, but it was mortifying to admit as much at her age.
But there was one way, she reasoned. One way she could get enough of the gory details to make a convincing enough story to satisfy Camilla and the others. Yor lit a badly-needed cigarette, and would've downed a full bottle of wine to steel her for what lay ahead, had the city not banned liquor of every type from public buildings.[1] A pity, that was.
[1] WISE Intel Dossier: East Berlint's anti-alcoholism campaign began in the fall of 1962, when an audit revealed that two thirds of public servants drank on the job at least once a month; during a surprise inspection of city hall conducted by the deputy mayor, twenty-three percent of employees were found unable to pass a sobriety test. The campaign was quietly shelved in late 1963 amidst collapsing workforce morale and the embarrassing spectacle of employees stepping outside of city hall to drink in plain view of the public. It was followed by a crackdown on the rampant theft of office stationery, with modest success.